Periodontitis Affects Nearly Half of Americans Over 30
Nearly half of American adults older than age 30 years have periodontal disease, according to recent findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Periodontology. The study, published in the October issue of the Journal of Dental Research, also found that the prevalence of periodontitis rises to 70.1% in adults older than age 65.
Researchers, led by Paul Eke, MPH, PhD, epidemiologist at the CDC, Atlanta, Georgia, evaluated data collected from 3743 adults age 30 years or older as part of the CDC's 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which assesses the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. In previous years, NHANES included only partial-mouth examinations for periodontitis; the 2009-2010 survey was the first to include a full-mouth periodontal examination.Ya think? People in institutions have the worst dental health of all.
Dr. Eke and colleagues found that 47.2% of the population (which would account for approximately 64.7 million adults) has periodontal disease, a figure far higher than previous national estimates.
"As periodontal disease is not evenly distributed in the mouth, these prior studies, [on the basis of] how they were designed, may have underestimated prevalence rates in the US population by as much as 50%" said Dr. Robert M. Pick, DDS, a practicing periodontist in Chicago, Illinois, and spokesperson for the American Dental Association, in an interview with Medscape Medical News "[These findings] add an entirely new set of statistics and a whole new set of percentages not known before."
The researchers further classified participants as having mild, moderate, or severe periodontitis, with rates of 8.7%, 30.0%, and 8.5%, respectively. Although the prevalence of mild and severe periodontitis remained stable at less than 15%, moderate periodontitis increased with age among all adults.
In an interview with Medscape Medical News, Pamela McClain, DDS, immediate past president of the American Academy of Periodontology and a practicing periodontist in Aurora, Colorado, said: "With what is known about the health complications related to periodontal disease, namely tooth loss and the increased risk of other systemic diseases, periodontitis is a significant public health issue."
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The authors note that use of the full-mouth periodontal examination in the 2009-2010 NHANES may have contributed to these figures being higher than previous national estimates. They caution, however, that other factors, such as conservative case definitions, exclusion of inflammation and furcation status, and nonsampling of institutionalized persons in the current study, may still have resulted in underestimation of true prevalence.
Funny how the experimental methods alter the results...
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